On the recordJuly 22, 2014
Thank you, Mr. President. I am here today to say happy birthday to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This week marks 4 years since Dodd-Frank was signed into law and 3 years since the consumer agency opened its doors. The consumer agency was built to be a new kind of regulatory agency, one that would stand up for America's families, not for big banks or credit card companies. The consumer agency was not popular with big banks and their friends in Washington. The financial services industry spent more than $1 million a day fighting tooth and nail against financial reforms and they vowed to kill the consumer agency before it was ever born. But thanks to the work of grassroots consumer groups across the country that worked very hard and got organized, we pushed back against the big banks' armies of lobbyists and lawyers, and we won. We succeeded in building a strong independent consumer agency with the tools necessary to protect consumers against the tricks and traps hidden in the fine print of mortgages, credit cards, and student loans. Under Rich Cordray's leadership, the staff of the CFPB has made amazing progress since it opened. This little agency has already forced big financial institutions to return more than $4 billion to 15 million consumers they cheated, and it has helped tens of thousands of consumers resolve complaints about their financial institutions.…
